E. B. v. E. C. B.

Decided November 4, 1858

New York Supreme Court · decided 1858-11-04

THIS was an appeal from an order made at a special term, denying a petition presented by the mother of the defendant, as her natural guardian, (the defendant being an infant under the age of twenty-one,) praying that the decree obtained in this action, dissolving the marriage contract between the plaintiff and defendant, on the ground of the defendant’s impotence, might be opened and the petitioner permitted to defend the action.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1858-11-04

How this case has been cited

Cited by 12 later decisions — most recently January 1902

12 state decisions

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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Clerke, J.

¶1I concur in the disposition of this matter, proposed in the opinion of Justice Ingraham ; but I differ entirely from that portion of it which intimates that the impotency of the defendant, at the time of the marriage, was not satisfactorily proved. The permanency of the physical obstruction referred to by some of the witnesses may be questionable; but I have little doubt her whole nervous organization was so shattered, and her sexual organs were in such a state of chronic irritability, if not congenitally defective, that she was incapable of consummating her nuptials; and we have no sufficient reason to suppose that her impotency is curable.

¶2Davies, P. J., concurred with Justice Clerke.

¶3Judgment directing a reference, to inquire as to the existence of collusion between the parties, in obtaining the decree of divorce.